


"Misplaced"

by butterflydreaming (chrysalisdreams)



Series: Fusenkago: Rearranging the Flowers [4]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalisdreams/pseuds/butterflydreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yue misdirects his feelings for Clow toward Eriol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Misplaced"

-Misplaced-  
Kaho finished brushing out the shining ribbon of her red hair just as Eriol closed his book and put his glasses on the nightstand. She turned out the light and slipped into bed with her beloved, snuggling close. The bright light of a gibbous moon spilled into their bedroom past the edges of the window’s curtains, which were drawn closed except for the half-inch where the edges refused to meet. Despite the cozy warmth, Kaho found that she couldn’t fall asleep; she stayed quietly staring at the blade of moonlight that cut across the bedroom floor.

“Something is on your mind.” Eriol’s gentle voice floated in the near darkness, showing that he, too, was still awake.

“Just a contemplation,” Kaho answered him. “Don’t you think that Yue should go home, soon?”

Eriol sat up with a slow sigh, and his cotton bedclothes whispered against the weight of the down comforter. “Do you think that he should?” he asked.

“Yue is Sakura’s Guardian, and his place is with her,” she pronounced. Her tone was light and unconfrontational, but there was a measured quality to it as well. She sat up herself, adjusting her long, satin nightgown so that she could fold her legs. “His being here is disruptive, Eriol.”

The sorcerer laughed and retreated behind a joke. “Are you jealous, my love?” he teased.

“I would only be jealous if you showed any interest in his… interest,” Kaho admitted. “But you don’t. So I’m not.”

“Yue is still coming to terms with the death of my former incarnation. He forgets that I’m not Clow. I’ve been clear with him from the beginning, however, and I’m certain that he’ll stop…” Eriol’s voice dropped to an embarrassed murmur, “…making passes at me when he understands.”

“It’s not just that, though. Spinel, and Ruby Moon…” Kaho began to explain. “Yue is bitter and cold, and he’s not interested in befriending either of them. And Nakuru tries so hard, poor thing. Yue brings down even her spirits. Have you noticed how spiteful she gets when he’s near? It’s not good,” she said.

Eriol shifted with discomfort. “Yue was always the cynical one.”

“It’s not good for him, either,” Kaho continued softly. “While he is here, he is only Yue, and almost never Yukito. And he doesn’t explain much to Yukito, either. That young man is so used to waking up somewhere without knowing how he arrived that he laughs about it.”

“I thought it would be beneficial, for Yue to remain himself primarily.”

“It hasn’t been.” Kaho paused to choose her phrasing carefully. “He sulks. He answers anything that I say to him with an unembroidered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ -- more often ‘no’ -- if he acknowledges me at all. The only one that he wants to talk to is you, and I see him following you around… with such a desperate, lost look. He weighs everything that you say to find a crumb of praise or encouragement. Remember that quotation that you mentioned, and how you said that you could not remember where you had read it? Do you know that he has spent all of the time when you are not home going through your books, looking for that phrase? So that he can tell you from where it came?”

“Hm,” said Eriol, the small sounded darkened with concern. “Spinel Sun said that Yue was going through the library. I thought that he was reading for enjoyment.”

“I don’t know if he can enjoy anything,” Kaho replied sadly.

Eriol pondered silently for the next minutes.

“Yue needs to be with Sakura and Keroberos,” Kaho said, finally. “He needs to go home. For himself, and for our family, too. Will you talk to him tomorrow?”

With a heavy breath, Eriol slid out from the covers and stood beside the bed. “No time like the Present,” he said. Putting on house shoes, he walked out of the room and down the stairs. He found Yue in the first place that he looked -- the room dedicated to his vast collection of books, where every inch of wall that did not contain a window held shelves thick with volumes. The tomes and manuscripts that were too old or too delicate to be shelved upright were stacked on and under podium-sized book tables, much as they would have been when they were first bound in centuries past. Sakura’s Guardian stood by a window, quickly turning the pages of a book, skimming the text intently.

He turned to face Eriol before Eriol flicked the switch that turned on the room’s lights. “Eriol,” Yue said as the electric light filled the room, and when he said the sorcerer’s name, it sounded like “Master”. He closed the book in his hands and took a step. “Did I wake you?”

Eriol began to assure him otherwise, but changed his mind. “It’s time for you to return to your home,” he said, instead.

The change in Yue’s expression was subtle. His lips thinned, and his eyes became guarded. He said nothing, letting the awkwardness of silence fill the moment.

Eriol smiled with false cheer. “I’m sure that Sakura misses you.”

A swift movement brought Yue to genuflect at Eriol’s feet. He tilted his pale face upward the slight angle to search Eriol’s countenance. “Let me stay,” he pleaded quietly, “near you.”

“Please stand up,” Eriol said, taking a step away. “Yue, this makes me very uncomfortable.”

“Have I… displeased you in some way?” Clow’s creation asked while reluctantly getting to his feet.

“I was speaking with Kaho…” Eriol began. 

Yue made a dismissive sound and stood up straighter. Eyes averted from the young-looking sorcerer, the winged man returned the book that he was holding to its place on a bookshelf.

Eriol patiently ignored the interruption and continued speaking. “You have been here several weeks, Yue. Yet… I wonder what you get from being here. If you had been spending your time getting to know my companions, I would understand. I have offered to speak with you about Clow’s memories, but you told me that you did not want that.”

“I told you that I didn’t want to speak of memories as if you were not he,” retorted Yue tightly. “As if we were discussing Archimedes or Newton.”

“And I told you that we should not discuss the other things,” countered Eriol in a low voice.

“Why?” Yue asked with a stubborn intensity. “Why do you wear the mantle of this life? I sense you,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment against the vision of Eriol before him, “I know the feel of you. I know that I can please you --”

“Enough,” stated Eriol sternly. “I will tell you again that I am not Clow.” 

Yue’s eyes glinted a silvery defiance before he averted them again. He reached out wistfully, touched his long fingers to Eriol’s sleeve, and traced the white pinstripe in the cloth. “I can give you everything that you have ever wanted…” he whispered.

“I have everything that I want,” answered Eriol with carefully spoken words. “Clow Reed is dead, Yue.” 

Yue pulled his hand back as if stung. “And what I wanted was to sleep in the Book forever!” he hissed. “You deny me and deny me!”

Eriol faced Yue’s wild expression with an expression of outward calm. “I think it would be best if you returned to Japan soon.” An enigmatic smile turned up the corners of his lips, but there was no smile in his eyes.

Yue stared at Eriol with the cat-slit pupils of his eyes narrowed, his eternally youthful face rigid with emotion that he could not express. Then his expression became distant, and his features took on their customary symmetry, like molded porcelain. “You are right,” he said with a chilly scorn. “There is nothing of my former Master left in you. You are not Clow.” His words dropped like daggers of ice. Yue turned away. He walked across the room toward one of the long windows that showed the outside world in a grid of small panes. Arms crossed, he looked out the window at the moonlight-painted garden where even the bright red roses were devoid of color under the lunar light. “I will leave immediately if my Mistress commands it.”

Eriol sighed. He delayed just a moment longer to study Yue, then he left the room to call Sakura.

 

\- - -

**Author's Note:**

> Topic: Sympathy for the Devil  
> Genre: Drama  
> Canon: blended, mostly manga (per the usual for me), post canon  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Length: 1446 words  
> Details: Take your favorite character and write him in a negative light. 
> 
> This was very hard for me to write. I still feel a little sick about it.


End file.
